Dummy grinned.
“You wouldn’t,” he said. “But I say, Master Mark, think old Purlrose will haunt me?”
“Bah!” ejaculated Mark. “There, come along; I want to get home and let Master Rayburn do something to my bit of a wound. It hurts so I can hardly walk.”
“Here, let me carry you, Master Mark. Pig-a-back. I can.”
“No, no, Dummy, old lad; but you come to the castle to-morrow, and say you are to walk up and see me. I shall have to be put to bed, I expect, in the same room with young Ralph Darley.”
“Then I shan’t come,” said the boy, scowling.
“Why?”
“’Cause I don’t like him, and I don’t like to see his father and their girl took there as if they were friends.”
“They are now, Dum, and there isn’t going to be any more fighting in the vale.”
It was a strange scene when the slow procession wound its way up the zigzag, at the top of which Mary Eden and Master Rayburn were waiting with the women and the tiny wounded garrison to receive the fresh party of injured folk.