From behind the knoll came a sudden holloa, then an uproarious burst of laughter.
"They've got em, by God!" The old man swung his chair about with lion- like eyes. "By your leave, sir, you must go to them lads."
The Parson was tearing off coat and cravat.
"I'm going…. I'll slip out of the dormer-window so as to leave the door shut."
He sped up the ladder, and down again in a twinkling.
"Here are the despatches! If I go down, it'll take em ten minutes to rush the place and give you time to burn the papers. Here are my pistols! one for the first Frenchman, and t'other—well, you're a better man than I am, Piper, you know what's right, but—"
"I'll trust my Maker before the Gap Gang," said the old man. "He'll understand…. Good-bye, sir. God help you."
"He will," cried the Parson. "It's His battle. Good-bye, Piper. I'm cut to the heart to leave you. But—"
He was up the ladder and out of the window in a moment, stealing across the greensward, Polly in one hand, and Knapp's bugle in the other.
No spatter of fire greeted him from the knoll; no flitting figures retreated before him. All was peace, and the fair breeze ruffling the sycamores.