As they walked down, the two lads drew closer together, and at last began to talk in a low voice about their failure.

"Head hurt much?" said Ralph.

"Yes, horribly; and I've left that old iron pot behind. Air's cool to it, though."

"Shall I bind it up?"

"No: don't bleed. I say."

"Yes."

"How are we going to meet our fathers to-morrow morning? Nice state the poor lads are in."

Ralph uttered a gasp at the thought of it. There was no leading prisoners back in triumph, with their hands bound behind them. They were beaten--cruelly beaten, and he was silent as his companion, as they tramped slowly on, at the head of their men, till the Steeple Stone was seen looming up ahead, where they would separate, little thinking that the worst was to come.

The lads halted to listen whether there was any sound of pursuit, and the men filed slowly by till they were fifty yards ahead, when all at once voices were heard in altercation, angry words were bandied from side to side; and spurred by the same feeling of dread, the two leaders dashed forward again.

Too late! The smouldering fires of years of hatred had been blown up by a few gusty words of bitter reproach. Nick Garth had in his pain and disappointment shouted out that if the party had been all Darleys the adventure would have succeeded.

Dan Rugg had yelled back that it was the Darleys who played coward and hung back; and the next moment, with a shout of rage, the two little parties were at one another, getting rid of their rage and disappointment upon those they looked upon as the real enemies of their race.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

RALPH PLEADS GUILTY.

It was a savage fight, and before Mark and Ralph, who rushed desperately into the _melee_, not to lead their men, but to separate them, could succeed in beating down the menacing pikes, several more were wounded; and at last they drew off, with their burdens greatly increased by having on either side to carry a couple of wounded men.

"We must put it down to Purlrose," said Mark bitterly, as he ran back for a moment to speak to Ralph. "But what do you say--oughtn't we to have our duel now?"

"If you like," said Ralph listlessly; "Perhaps we'd better, and then I may be half killed. My father may be a little merciful to me then."

Mark leaned forward a little, so as to try and make out whether his ally was speaking in jest or earnest; and there was enough feeble light in the east to enable him to read pretty plainly that the lad was in deadly earnest.

"No," he said sharply; "I don't think we'll have it out now. My head's too queer, and my eyes keep going misty, so that I can't see straight.

You'd get the best of it. I don't want to meet my father, but I'd rather do that than be half killed. The poke from that pike was quite enough to last me for a bit."

He turned and trotted off after his men, while Ralph joined his, to hear them grumbling and muttering together, he being the burden of their complaint.

Nick Garth and Ram Jennings seemed to be the most bitter against him, the latter commencing boldly at once.

"Oh, Master Ralph," he cried, "if your father had been here, we should ha' paid them Edens for hanging back as they did."

"They did not hang back," cried Ralph angrily; "they fought very bravely."

"What!" cried Nick. "Well, I do like that. But I don't care. Dessay I shall be a dead 'un 'fore I gets to the Castle, and then we shall see what Sir Morton will say."

"Well, you will not hear, Nick," said Ralph quietly.

"No: I shan't hear, Master Ralph, 'cause I shall be a dead 'un, I suppose. But I'm thinking about my poor old mother. She'll break her heart when they carry me to her, stiff as a trout, for I'm the only son she has got."

This was too much for the wounded men even. They forgot their sufferings in the comic aspect of the case, familiar as they all were with the open enmity existing between Mother Garth and her son, it being common talk that the last act of affection displayed toward him had been the throwing of a pot of boiling water at his head.

The laugh lightened the rest of the way, but they were a doleful-looking, ragged, and blood-stained set, who bore one of their number upon a litter formed of pike-staves up the zigzag to the men's quarters at day-break; and Ralph felt as if he had hardly strength enough to climb back to his window and go to bed, after seeing his roughly-bandaged men safely in.

But he made the essay, and when half-way up dropped back again into the garden, just as a thrush began to pipe loudly its welcome to the coming day; and the blackbirds were uttering their c.h.i.n.king calls low down in the moist gloom amongst the bushes on the cliff slope.

"Can't leave the poor fellows like that," he muttered. "Oh dear, how stiff I am! Father said he always felt it his duty, when he was a soldier, to look well after his wounded men."

He stood thinking for a few moments, and then began to tramp down the steep path to where the shadows were still dark, and a mist hung over the rippling stream. Then taking to the track beside it, he trudged on, with the warm glow in the east growing richer of tint, the birds breaking out into joyous song, and minute by minute the vale, with its wreaths of mist, growing so exquisitely beautiful that the black horrors of the past night began to seem more distant, and the cloud of shadow resting above his aching head less terrible and oppressive.

And as the sun approached its rising, so did the beauties around the lad increase; and he tramped on with a sensation of wonder coming upon him, that with all so glorious at early morn in this world of ours, it should be the work of the highest order of creatures upon it to mar and destroy, and contrive the horrors which disfigure it from time to time.

"And I've been one of the worst," he said to himself bitterly. "No: it was to stop others from doing these things," he cried quickly. "Oh, if we had not failed!"

He quickened his pace now, and, just as the sun rose high enough to light up the vale with its morning glow, he came in sight of the opening where Master Rayburn's cottage stood.

"I shall have to wake him up," said the lad, with a sigh; "and oh! what a tale to tell!"

But he did not have to waken the old man, for as he drew nearer he suddenly caught sight of his friend, standing with his back to him, hands clasped and hanging in front, head bent and bare, and the horizontal rays of the rising sun turning his silver locks to gold.

The lad gazed at him in surprise, but went on softly till he was quite close up, when Master Rayburn turned suddenly, smiled, and said:

"Ah! Ralph Darley, my lad, that's how I say my prayers, but I'm a good Christian all the same. Why, what brings--here, speak, boy," he cried excitedly--"torn, covered with dirt--and what's this?--blood? Oh, Ralph, boy, don't say that you and Mark Eden have been meeting again."

"Yes," said Ralph slowly; "we parted only a little while ago;" and he told the old man what had taken place, while the latter eagerly examined the speaker to seek for hurts.

"Then--then--you two lads--on the strength of what I said--attacked those ruffians in their den?"

"Yes, Master Rayburn," said the lad bitterly; "and failed--miserably failed. Do, pray, come up and see our poor fellows. One of them is badly hurt, and the others have nearly all got wounds."

"But you--you, boy. I don't see the cause of all this blood."

"No," said Ralph wearily. "I'm not hurt. I suppose that came through helping the men."

"Ah! and Mark Eden--is he hurt?"

"No: we two ought to have had the worst of it. He had a thrust on the head, but his steel cap saved him, and he walked home."

"But Sir Morton? he did not know you were going?"

"No: we kept it to ourselves."

"He knows now, of course?"

"Nothing at all. We've only just got back."

"I'll come at once," said the old man; and hurrying into the cottage, he took some linen and other necessaries, put on his hat, and rejoined the lad, making him give a full account of the attack and failure as they walked sharply back to the Castle.