Page:The golden age.djvu/80

THE GOLDEN AGE we were just now dallying with the Wars of the Roses; and did not legends of the country-side inform us how cavaliers had once galloped up and down these very lanes from their quarters in the village? Here, now, were soldiers unmistakable; and if their business was not fighting, what was it? Sniffing the joy of battle, we followed hard in their tracks.

'Won't Edward be sorry,' puffed Harold, 'that he's begun that beastly Latin?'

It did, indeed, seem hard. Edward, the most martial spirit of us all, was drearily conjugating amo (of all verbs!) between four walls; while Selina, who ever thrilled ecstatic to a red coat, was struggling with the uncouth German tongue. 'Age,' I reflected, 'carries its penalties.'

It was a grievous disappointment to us that the troop passed through the village unmolested. Every cottage, I pointed out to my companions, ought to have been loopholed, and strongly held. But no opposition was offered to the soldiers: who, indeed, conducted themselves with a recklessness and a want of precaution that seemed simply criminal. 44