When alone again we counted our money. Financial ruin did not stare us in the face, for our united fund from the savings of many a lucky penny—dear aunt was so good to us—came to a few shillings over seven pounds. We thought ourselves rich, but determined to be very cautious nevertheless.
We slept well and did not dream once. Our bedroom was a little attic, the window of which looked over the front causeway. The sound of many voices awoke us next morning. I sprang out of bed, and peeped cautiously out from under a corner of the blind.
To my horror and dismay the roadway was crowded with soldiers, and I could distinctly see the glitter of fixed bayonets. Pale and trembling were both of us now, but we dressed and waited. After about an hour’s terrible suspense the party broke up, one half—who, by the way, had a prisoner—going south, and the rest going on in the direction of the moor.
The men were only hunting for deserters, after all, so our appetite returned, and we did ample justice to the good things set before us by the kind landlady. Then we bade her good-bye, and started.
We had to move with great caution now, for we knew the soldiers were on ahead, and we did not know what might happen. However, nothing did happen all that forenoon. We must have missed our way somehow, for instead of coming to the one house the woman spoke of, we came to quite a little hamlet, with a shop or two, and here, not knowing what might be before us, we bought provisions enough in the shape of bacon, butter, bread, and red herrings—we were not dainty—to last us for a week at least.
Then cautiously inquiring our way north, and after making a hearty lunch at a small inn, we set out once more, and, feeling very buoyant and fresh, walked on as straight as the road would take us till nearly sundown.
We never came to an eminence, however, without getting up and gazing round us, and when we came to a wooded turn in the road we deserted it altogether and took to the bush.
Just about sundown we heard voices on ahead, and Jill and I leapt like deer behind a hedge, and lay as still as snakes do. We soon saw the gleam of scarlet. It was the soldiers returning, and with them, between men with fixed bayonets, a poor dejected-looking lad with his fatigue jacket open and soiled, and his head bare. He was handcuffed.
When right opposite us they all stopped.
“Give us a light, Bill,” said one.