"Heaven have mercy upon those poor men!" said Hortensia, with a sigh. "Do you not think you hear cries and shrieks, Ralph?"
"No, indeed, dear lady," replied her companion; "it is your own bright imagination hears them."
"They are heard by the ear of Heaven," replied Hortensia; and, bending down her eyes, she fell into a fit of deep thought.
The farmer's voice roused her. "And now, my lady," he said, "if you will take my advice, you will lie down and take an hour or two's rest--say till five o'clock. By that time we shall know how matters have gone, though I myself don't doubt. By that time, too, the chase will be over, and you can get some breakfast, mount your horse with this young gentleman, and ride away quietly, keeping to the rear of the army."
"But suppose we should be met by stragglers, and stopped?" said Lady Danvers; "I have a great dread of those troops of Colonel Kirke's; and there being no one with us to protect us, we should be quite at their mercy if they met with us."
"Well," said the old farmer, scratching his head, "I will ride with you till you're out of harm's way, and will take two of the lads with us; not that I should be any great protection, or they either, for that matter; but I think I've got a secret to keep them quiet. I don't believe they'll venture to hurt me, any how. So now go and lie down and rest quietly, there's a dear, pretty lady."
"I do not think I can sleep at all after what I have seen," answered Hortensia.
"Never mind that, my lady," said the farmer's wife; "it will rest you, at any rate, to lie down. Come with me, and I will show you the way."
Hortensia followed, and Ralph remained debating with himself whether it might not be better for him to place his fair companion under the charge and safe guidance of these honest people, and entreat them to see her unmolested to the house of some relation, than to persist in accompanying her, when his presence seemed but to bring mishap and inconvenience with it. He determined, in the end, to see her, at all events, safely beyond the immediate neighborhood of the field of battle, and then to propose his plan to her, and leave her to decide.