about and try their strength upon the heavy stone fragments of the family arms and other devices, which had forcibly been wrenched from the walls. This, too, was in imitation of the Protector, who had generally, however, a deeper object than mere recreation in encouraging these military saturnalia. He loved to divert the robust and sturdy soldiers with violent and hazardous exercises, such as making them sometimes throw a burning coal into one another's boots, or cushion at one another's heads. When the officers had sufficiently laughed and tired themselves with these preludes, he would wheedle them to open their hearts freely, and by that means he drew some secrets from the unwary, which afterwards they wished might have been wrapped up in everlasting darkness; whilst he, in the mean time, pumping the secrets of all others, concealed his own. Colonel Lilburne made no such attempts, but after his men had diverted themselves a reasonable time, he caused the trumpet to be sounded, and directing that his young prisoner should be mounted on his own pony, (which was found in the stable,) and guarded constantly by two soldiers, he commenced his march back to London, with a small part of his troops, leaving the remainder properly posted and distributed, to take charge of Brambletye House, and its newly discovered depôt of military weapons. CHAPTER III. "By how much unexpected, by so much SHAKSPEARE. WHILE these untoward events were occurring at Brambletye House, its owner was hotly engaged in the pleasures of the chace, little suspecting the slippery trick which dame Fortune was at that very moment playing him. His day's sport had been. unusually successful, and he was proportionately elated by the enjoyment of his favourite pastime. With the coarse humour engendered by the animosity of party, some red ochre had been smeared over the face of the stag turned out upon the occasion, which was forthwith christened red-nosed Noll; and it so happened that the animal was run down by a hound named Rowland, by which appellation the absent King was generally designated. So huge was the delight of Sir John at this coincidence, which he hailed as a most auspicious omen, that when the stag was killed, he ordered his huntsman to wind the customary mort upon his horn twice over; and in spite of the alarmed looks and deprecatory hints of some of the loyal gentlemen, by whom he was accompanied, he could not be prevented from roaring out, at the top of his voice: "Since Noll hath bereft us, and nothing hath left us, Not a horse or an ox to plough land, Let Oliver pass; come fill up a glass, And here's a good health to Rowland;" which he wound up with a hunter's tally-ho! instead of a chorus, and chuckled, and cracked his whip and his joke in an uncontrollable ecstasy of triumphant glee. "How now! Sir Knight of the rueful countenance," he exclaimed to one of the bystanders, who seemed particularly dissatisfied at this imprudent exposure, "never fear, we are all good men, and true blue to the backbone. At least I can answer for myself: I can laugh, and sing, and play the fool, but I am no such grinning and scurrilous turn-coat as Marchamount Needham, whom somebody or other has noticed as 'transcendently gifted in opprobrious and treasonable droll.' I am not one of those who begin with the Mercurius Britannicus, and after turning over to the King, and asking his pardon upon my knees, end with the rascally Mercurius Politicus." "The bird that sings before the fowler," said the wary Sir William Clayton, for such was the gentle man to whom he had addressed himself, "gets paid for his piping with a shot. The bough that flutters to every wind shakes its own fruit to the ground, and the tongue that is always wagging will at length bring down its owner's head. The mouth is the door of the heart, Sir John, and before we venture to leave it unlocked we should be sure of other's honesty, as well as our own, which is a difficult task when many a listener's ears are like an open prison, and his hand like a limed bough." “Od's heart! my worthy neighbour," cried Sir John, "be as wise and as sententious as you please, but be not angry with a merry old cock for chirping a bit, or even for crowing aloud.” "Surely he had better be silent," observed Sir William, "when the poacher is loading his gun without, and the fox and the weazel are lurking for him within." "If I were to be silent, I should be instantly suspected," replied Sir John, "for great talkers are always thought to be the least doers, and every body knows, it's the still sow that eats all the draff; so take care of yourself, master sly-boots.-Tut, man; I know as well as you that the empty cask makes the most noise, but it may be sound at heart nevertheless, and all the safer, because nobody thinks of tapping it." Sir William now put his finger to his lips, and directed his eyes to a part of the retinue that was approaching, a hint which was instantly taken by his companion; for unguarded as he was, Sir John was not quite so hair-brained as to commit himself before the assembled servants and strangers. Naturally blunt and open in his disposition, he abhorred the mask which common prudence occasionally compelled him to wear when, therefore, he was among companions whom he thought to deserve his confidence, he threw off his disguise and indulged the genuine bias of his mind with as much glee as the galled and trammelled horse escapes from his harness to luxuriate in his native pasture. Determined, however, to redeem his character with Sir William, and prove that he could be as cunning and as close upon occasion as the best of them, he now preserved an unnatural silence, and displayed such a studied reserve when bantered for being out of spirits, that he abundantly confirmed his own assertion of exciting much more suspicion by his taciturnity, than by all the frankness of his customary rattle. Anxious to have some confidential conversation with Sir William about the fearful enterprise in which they were both embarked, and apprehensive from his distrustful character, that he would maintain his usual reserve if there' were other witnesses, he dismissed all his attendants to Brambletye House, and requested such of the gentry as he had engaged to dinner, to proceed to the same destination by one route, while he and Sir William would follow them by another. So energetically, however, did he disclaim having any thing particu |