My Lady Rotha by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

We lay in the osier bed two whole days and a night, during which time two at least of us were not unhappy, in spite of peril and hardship. We left it at last, only because our meagre provision gave out, and we must move or starve. We felt far from sure that the danger was over, for Steve, who spent the second day in a thick bush near the road, saw two troops of horse go by; and others, we believed, passed in the night. But we had no choice. The neighbourhood was bleak and bare. Such small homesteads as existed had been eaten up, and lay abandoned. If we had felt inclined to venture out for food, none was to be had. And, in fine, though we trembled at the thought of the open road, and my heart for one grew sick as I looked from Marie to my lady, and reckoned the long tale of leagues which lay between us and Cassel, the risk had to be run.

Steve had discovered a more easy though longer way out of the willow-bed, and two hours before midnight on the second night, he and I mounted the women and prepared to set out. He arranged that we should go in the same order in which we had come: that he should lead the march, and I bring up the rear, while the Waldgrave, who was still far from well, and whose continued lack of vigour troubled us the more as we said little about it, should ride with my lady.