Bidding Martha, our housekeeper, stay with Constance, and impressing upon her the necessity for silence as to what had occurred, my father, taking a mattock in his hand, set out to the scene of the encounter, I accompanying him, and carrying the spades over my shoulder.
"Where is the package I bade you bring from Lyndhurst?" he asked, as we left the outskirts of the village.
I searched the pockets of my doublet without success, though I was certain that the article had been safely placed in one of them.
"It must have fallen out on the road," I replied.
"'Tis a grave matter," he said, with a look of anxiety and a gesture of impatience. "How can I--but there! if 't comes to the worst, I must journey into Southampton myself. 'Tis the fortune of war."
No more was said, for we were already in sight of the cross-roads, and Captain Miles was sitting on the bracken-covered bank awaiting us.
"Good day to you, Cap'n Hammond!" he exclaimed as we approached. "'Tis a sad business dragging you and yours into this bickering."
"Yet, thanks to Heaven and your aid, my children were saved from the clutches of those rogues."
"Had it not been for me the rascals would not have been here," replied Captain Miles apologetically. "Yet I thank you, sir, for coming to my assistance, though 'tis to the advantage of this part of the countryside that we hide this carrion," and he pointed with his finger to the bodies of the two dragoons.
We set to work with a will, and in less than a quarter of an hour a shallow trench was dug sufficiently deep to receive the corpses of the ruffianly soldiers.