as the great hollow elm where the
owls regularly bred and slept all day. Another minute, and the horses'
hoofs were slashing up the babbling water of the stream which crossed
the road--the tiny river where they had so often waded after trout and
stone loaches.

There at last, calm and still in the starlight, lay the Manor, and the
young officer felt a wild kind of joy, which he had to fight down, lest
he should seem childish before his followers, for the impulse of the
moment was to leap from the horse and rush through the garden, over the
lawn, and up to the doorway, shouting for joy.

But discipline, the desire to seem manly, and a strange feeling of dread
kept him calm and stern beyond his years, the feeling of dread soon
dominating the other sensations. For how could he tell but that a party
of the enemy had ridden up to his dear old home, as they had that
evening ridden up to Scarlett's, and were perhaps behaving with far less
consideration than they had shown? and how did he know that his old
habitation was not a ruin, and his mother a wanderer far away.

A curious dimness came over his sight at these terrible thoughts, and he
felt as if he were going to fall from his horse. His old injuries
throbbed and stung, and it seemed to him that his fears were correct,
for the old Manor did not look as it should be. Surely the windows were
all bare of glass, the great chimney stack was down, and the ivy which
clothed the front torn away and scorched by fire.

The giddy sensation increased, and he involuntarily clutched the pommel
of his saddle as he bent forward, staring wildly at the dear old place,
when he was suddenly brought to himself by the voice of Samson, who said
aloud--

"All fast asleep. Oh, Master Fred, I wonder how my dear old garden
looks."

The misty, giddy sensation had gone, and in a firm voice Fred cried,
"Halt!"

For there before him, dimly seen in the starlight, lay the old Manor,
quite unscathed, for the tide of war had not yet swept over that part of
the pleasant land.

Fred dismounted, passed through the little oaken gate, and walking up
the path, was about to rap at the door with the hilt of his sword.

But the trampling of horses and a loud neigh like a challenge had
awakened those within. A well-known casement was opened, and a familiar
voice exclaimed--

"Who's there?"

"Mother!" whispered Fred, hoarsely.

There was a cry of joy from the open window; then a clicking noise of