“Do as you think best, Walter, but don’t tell him, unless you feel almost sure that he will not object.”

“There is no fear of that,” Walter said.  “He is constantly lamenting over the sufferings of the people of Derry, and has, all along, been in favour of attempting to storm the place by force, so as to put a stop to all this useless suffering.  Now, John, you had better lie down on that straw bed of mine, and get a sleep.  After that, you will be ready for another meal.  I will tell Larry to go out among the market people, and buy three gallons of milk and twenty pounds of bread.  There are plenty of small spirit kegs about, which will do capitally for the milk, and I don’t think that we can have anything better than one of them for the bread.  We can head it up, and make it watertight.  How do you mean to get into the town?  I should have thought that they were likely to be seized.”

“So they would be,” John said.  “I shall hide them in some bushes at the foot of the walls, at the side of the town facing the river.  There are only a few sentries there.  Then, when it is light, I shall go in and tell my cousin; and get him, after dark, to lower a rope from the wall.  I shall of course be below, to tie on the kegs.  He can then walk with them boldly through the street to our house, which is only a short distance from that part of the walls.  If anyone saw him, they would only suppose he was taking home water from one of the wells.”

John was soon fast asleep.  Walter sat watching him until, two hours later, his father returned with his troop.  John still slept on, while Walter told his father the errand on which he had come.

“He is a brave lad,” Captain Davenant said, “and I honour him for his conduct.  It is not many men who, at a time like this, would risk their lives for a number of children who are not any relation to them.  Certainly, I will gladly assist him.  I am sick at heart at all this.  My only consolation is, that it is brought on solely by the acts of these men, who, though comparatively a handful, set themselves up against the voice of all Ireland.  If they had risen when an English army arrived to their assistance, I should say nothing against it.  As it is, without doing any good to their cause, they are entailing this horrible suffering upon thousands of women and children.

“By all means, help the poor lad, and if he should fall into the hands of our people, let him mention my name.  Rosen would no doubt disapprove of it, but I cannot help that.  All the Irish gentlemen in the army would agree that I had done rightly, and, even if they didn’t, my own conscience would be quite sufficient for me to act upon.  I am fighting against the king’s enemies, not warring against women and children.

“How soundly the poor lad sleeps, and how changed he is!  He is a mere skeleton.  I should not have known him in the least.  If this is the condition into which a strong, healthy lad has fallen, what must the women and children have suffered!  I wish Kirk had not turned coward, but had landed his troops.  We could then have brought up our scattered forces, and could have fought them in a fair field, with something like equal forces.  That would have been vastly more to my taste than starving them, like rats in a hole.”