within a few miles of Hayslope itself, and the inhabitants none the
wiser; so it was not strange that he could hear nothing of the movements
of an army away in Yorkshire.

But all suspense was at an end in a day or two. A messenger arrived
bearing despatches for Captain Stanhope, and in them mention was made of
the disastrous battle of Marston Moor. These despatches were commands
for the Captain to collect all the men he had been able to get in his
recruiting tour, and join the main body of the army in the west of
England.

So Mary's marriage, which was to have taken place in a few weeks, had to
be postponed until the autumn, or rather winter, for there could be no
certainty of his returning to Hayslope until then. There was always a
truce of a few months during winter. Wars could not be carried on
regardless of weather, as they are now, and thus it was that they often
lasted years.

After the departure of the Captain, life seemed to pass more slowly and
monotonously than ever at Hayslope Grange. Out of the direct main road,
strangers rarely came that way, and so little was known of how events
were tending in the mortal strife going on so near them.

The trial of Archbishop Laud was still being carried on by the London
Parliament; Oxford was supporting the King in the combat with his
subjects, the north having yielded to Fairfax, the Parliamentary
general. This was all the news that came to Hayslope through all the
remaining days of July and the sultry weeks of August. No word came from
Harry Drury, not a syllable that Maud was hungering to hear with a
hunger that paled her cheek and was wasting her strength.

The harvest--what there was--had to be gathered in by women for the most
part; and when Maud looked at these going out to their unwonted toil, a
baby in one hand and a reaping-hook in the other, and thought of the
burden of sorrow they had to carry as well, she reproached herself for
weakly yielding to her grief; and yet it was hard to combat sometimes.

She had been compelled to rebel against Mistress Mabel's command to sit
more closely to her spinning and sewing. Not that she disliked preparing
Mary's house linen, but because she could not endure the scrutiny of
those hard cold eyes, and to get away from them she did as Harry had
done many a time before--mounted Cavalier, and cantered away miles over
the fields, and then back to the village, to visit her friends there.

The months of September and Octob