en to him since your good mother was
took."

Several of the men had accompanied her, and after some consultation, it
was decided that the burial had better take place that very night, even
though there was no time to make a coffin.

"Many an honest man will be in that same case," said Harry Blane, the
smith, "if they come to blows down there."

"And He to Whom he is gone will not ask whether he lies in a coffin, or
has the prayers said over him," added Goody, "though 'tis pity on him
too, for he always was a man for churches and parsons and prayers."

"Vain husks, said the pious captain," put in Oates.

"Well," said Harry Blane, "those could hardly be vain husks that made
John Kenton what he was. Would that the good old times were back again;
when a sackless man could not be shot down at his own door for nothing
at all."

Reverently and carefully John Kenton's body was borne to the churchyard,
where he was laid in the grave beside his much loved wife. No knell was
rung: Elmwood, lying far away over the hill side in the narrow wooded
valley with the river between it and the camp, had not yet been visited
by any of the Royalist army, but a midnight toll might have attracted
the attention of some of the lawless stragglers. Nor did anyone feel
capable of uttering a prayer aloud, and thus the only sound at that
strange sad funeral was the low boom of a midnight gun fired in the
beleaguered city.

Then Patience with Rusha and the baby were taken home by kind old Goody
Grace, while the smith called the two lads into his house.

CHAPTER VI. LEFT TO THEMSELVES.

"One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eye the gathering tear,
Then, like the high bred colt when freed
First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanished---"
SCOTT.

Steadfast was worn and wearied out with grief and slept heavily, knowing
at first that his brother was tossing about a good deal, but soon losing
all perception, and not waking till on that summer morning the sun had
made some progress in the sky.

Then he came to the sad recollection of the last dreadful day, and knew
that he was lying on Master Blane's kitchen floor. He picked himself up,
and at the same moment heard Jephthah calling him from the outside.

"Stead," he said, "I am going!"

"Going!" said poor Stead, half asleep.

"Yes. I shall never rest till I have had a shot at those barbarous
German princes