till
prayed together for our brother twice a day; but she knew--and either
dared not or cared not to ask why--that since his first home-coming
my love had cooled towards him. Very likely she believed me to be
jealous.

The hay-harvest found and passed us in peace, and the wheat was near
ripe, when, towards the close of July, rumours came to us of an army
marching towards Cornwall under command of the Earl of Essex; by
persuasion (it was said) of the Lord Robarts, whose seat of Lanhydrock
lies on our bank of the river about three miles above Lostwithiel,
facing the Lord Mohun's house of Boconnoc across the valley. My Lord
Mohun, after some wavering at first, had cast in his fortune with
the King's party, to which belonged well nigh all the gentry of our
neighbourhood; and had done so in good time for his reputation. But
the Lord Robarts was an obstinate clever man who chose the other side
and stuck to it in despite of first misfortunes. We guessed therefore
that if the Parliamentarians came by his invitation they would not
neglect a district on which he staked so much for mastery; and sure
enough, about July 25th, we heard that Essex had reached Bodmin with
the mass of his forces, Sir Richard Grenvill having retired before him
and moved hastily with the Queen's troop to Truro. After this, Margery
and I used to climb every morning to the earthwork and spy all the
country round for signs of the hated troopers. Yet day passed after
day with nought to be seen, and little to be heard but further
rumours, of which the most constant said that the King himself was
following Essex with an army, and had already seized and crossed the
passes of the Tamar.

'Twas on the 2nd of August that the bolt fell; when after mounting
the slope at daybreak with nothing to warn us, we stepped through the
dykes into the old camp. A heavy dew hung in beads on the brambles,
and at the second dyke I had turned and was holding aside a brier to
let Margery pass, when a short cry from her fetched me right-about and
staring into the face of a tall soldier grinning at us over the bank.
In the enclosure behind him (as we saw through a gap) were a number of
men in mud-coloured jerkins, quietly mounting a couple of cannon.

"Good morning!" said the soldier amiably, with an up-country twang in
his voice, "Good-morning, my pretty dears! And if you come from the
farm below, what may be the name of it?"

"Lawhibbet," I answered, seeing that Margery closed