well they may, faith, with an army ruled by parsons - the wage
will be a swift death on field or gallows, or a lingering one
in the plantations, as fell to the lot of those poor wretches
Noll drove into England after Dunbar. Soul of my body, it is
not thus that I had looked to fare when I took service at
Perth. I had looked for plunder, rich and plentiful plunder,
according to the usages of warfare, as a fitting reward for a
toilsome march and the perils gone through.

"Thus I know war, and for this have I followed the trade these
twenty years. Instead, we have thirty thousand men, marching
to battle as prim and orderly as a parcel of acolytes in a
Corpus-Christi procession. 'Twas not so bad in Scotland haply
because the country holds naught a man may profitably plunder -
but since we have crossed the Border, 'slife, they'll hang you
if you steal so much as a kiss from a wench in passing."

"Why, true," laughed Crispin, "the Second Charles hath an
over-tender stomach. He will not allow that we are marching
through an enemy's country; he insists that England is his
kingdom, forgetting that he has yet to conquer it, and - "

"Was it not also his father's kingdom?" broke in the impetuous
Hogan. "Yet times are sorely changed since we followed the
fortunes of the Martyr. In those days you might help yourself
to a capon, a horse, a wench, or any other trifle of the
enemy's, without ever a word of censure or a question asked.
Why, man, it is but two days since His Majesty had a poor devil
hanged at Kendal for laying violent hands upon a pullet. Pox
on it, Cris, my gorge rises at the thought! When I saw that