bitterly. 'I am on your side now.
Shake him again.'

Anne shook him again, but he slept on. Then she noticed that his
forehead bore the mark of a heavy wound.

'I fancy I hear something!' said her companion, starting forward and
endeavouring to wake Bob herself. 'He is stunned, or drugged!' she said;
'there is no rousing him.'

Anne raised her head and listened. From the direction of the eastern
road came the sound of a steady tramp. 'They are coming back!' she said,
clasping her hands. 'They will take him, ill as he is! He won't open
his eyes--no, it is no use! O, what shall we do?'

Matilda did not reply, but running to the end of the seat on which Bob
lay, tried its weight in her arms.

'It is not too heavy,' she said. 'You take that end, and I'll take this.
We'll carry him away to some place of hiding.'

Anne instantly seized the other end, and they proceeded with their burden
at a slow pace to the lower garden-gate, which they reached as the tread
of the press-gang resounded over the bridge that gave access to the mill
court, now hidden from view by the hedge and the trees of the garden.

'We will go down inside this field,' said Anne faintly.

'No!' said the other; 'they will see our foot-tracks in the dew. We must
go into the road.'

'It is the very road they will come down when they leave the mill.'

'It cannot be helped; it is neck or nothing with us now.'

So they emerged upon the road, and staggered along without speaking,
occasionally resting for a moment to ease their arms; then shaking him to
arouse him, and finding it useless, seizing the seat again. When they
had gone about two hundred yards Matilda betrayed signs of exhaustion,
and she asked, 'Is there no shelter near?'

'When we get to that little field of corn,' said Anne.

'It is so very far. Surely there is some place near?'

She pointed to a few scrubby bushes overhanging a little stream, which
passed under the road near this point.

'They are not thick enough,' said Anne.

'Let us take him under the bridge,' said Matilda. 'I can go no further.'

Entering the opening by which cattle descended to drink, they waded into
the weedy water, which here rose a few inches above their ankles. To
ascend the stream, stoop under the arch, and reach the centre of the
roadway, was the work of a few minutes.

'If they look under the arch we are lost,' murmured Anne.

'There is no parapet to the bridge, and they may pass over wit