“To horse, lads!  We will ride out and give the peasants a helping hand, if they really mean to attack the enemy.”

Kilcowan was two miles away and, having learned from the peasant that the people intended to attack at a point where the road passed between two hills, a mile and a half beyond the village, he galloped on at full speed.  He arrived, however, too late to take any part in the fight.  The peasants had rushed suddenly down the hillsides, armed with scythes and pikes, upon the convoy as it passed below them.  Several of the cavalry had been killed, and the rest were riding off, when Walter with his troopers dashed up.  They continued the pursuit for a mile, cutting off a few stragglers, less well mounted than the rest, and then returned to Kilcowan, where the peasants had just arrived in triumph with the rescued carts of potatoes.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, when the excitement of the welcome, accorded by the women to the captors, had subsided a little.  “You may expect a strong body to be sent out, tomorrow, to punish you for this.”

“It’s the general’s own proclamation, your honour.  Didn’t he say, himself, that his soldiers were not to stale anything, and that they would be severely punished if they did?  And didn’t he guarantee that we should be paid for everything?  He could not blame us for what we have done, and he ought to hang the rest of those thieving villains, when they get back to him.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about it,” Walter said.  “He issued a good many proclamations before, but he has never kept the terms of one of them.  If I were you, I would leave the village—­man, woman, and child—­for a few days, at any rate, and see how the Dutchman takes it.”

But the villagers could not be persuaded that the Dutch general would disapprove of what they had done, and Walter, finding his arguments of no avail, rode off with his men to the village they had left, an hour before; with the parting advice that, if they would not follow his counsel, they should, at any rate, place watchers that night on the roads towards Ginckle’s camp, to bring them news of the approach of any body of the enemy’s cavalry.

But the villagers were too delighted with their day’s work to pay much heed to Walter’s warning, and, after a general jollification in honour of their victory, retired to rest, thoughtless of danger.

It was getting dark when Walter reached the village where he had determined to stay for the night.  He ordered the men to keep the saddles on their horses, and to hitch them to the doors of the cabins where they took up their quarters, in readiness for instant movement.  He placed one mounted sentry at the entrance to the village, and another a quarter of a mile on the road towards Kilcowan.

At nine o’clock, he heard the sound of a horse galloping up to the door, and ran out.  It was the sentry at the end of the village.

“Kilcowan is on fire, sir!”