upon the Edens."

"Yes," said Sir Morton, "I suppose it would have been so."

"Why not get the men quietly together some night, father, and if I went
round, I'm sure I could collect a dozen who would come and help--men
whose places have been robbed."

"That's right, Ralph; there are people as much as twenty miles away--
twelve men? Five-and-twenty, I'll be bound."

"Well, I'll think about it," said Sir Morton; and when Master Rayburn
walked home that day, Ralph bore him company part of the way, and
chatted the matter over with him.

"I'm getting ashamed of your father, Ralph, lad. He has plenty of
weapons of war, and he could arm a strong party, and yet he does
nothing."

"I wish he would," said the lad. "I don't like the idea of fighting,
but I should like to see those rascals taken."

"But you will not until your father is stirred up by their coming and
making an attack upon your place."

"Oh, they would not dare to do that," cried Ralph.

"What! why, they are growing more daring day by day; and mark my words,
sooner or later they'll make a dash at the Castle, and plunder the
place."

"Oh!" ejaculated Ralph, as he thought of his sister.

"I wish they would," cried the old man angrily, "for I am sick of seeing
such a state of things in our beautiful vales. No one is safe. It was
bad enough before, with the petty contemptible jealousies of your two
families, and the fightings between your men. But that was peace
compared to what is going on now."

"Don't talk like that, Master Rayburn," said Ralph warmly. "I don't
like you to allude to my father as you do."

"I must speak the truth, boy," said the old man. "You feel it now; but
some day, when you are a man grown, and your old friend has gone to
sleep, and is lying under the flowers and herbs and trees that he loved
in life, you will often think of his words, and that he was right."

Ralph was silent.

"I am not a man of war, my boy, but a man of peace. All the same,
though, whenever either your father or young Mark Eden's arms his men to
drive these ruffians out of our land, I am going to gird on my old
sword, which is as bright and sharp as ever, to strike a blow for the
women and children. Yes, for pretty Minnie Darley, and Mary Eden too.
For I love 'em both, boy, and have ever since they were bairns."

Ralph went back home to Cliff Castle, thinking very deeply about the old
man's words, and wishing--and planning in a vague way--that he a