stimulated by the signt as well as the odour of the viands already spread out for the recreation of the hunters. Substitutes being presently provided for the cook, who had deserted his post at the very critical hour of his art, the remainder of the dinner was shortly smoking in the great hall, and the black jack which Sergeant Whittaker had so often replenished for the encouragement of the garrison, being now put in requisition for the solace of the victorious assailants, the whole party, officers and privates, sat down to their repast with that familiarity which was studiously affected in those levelling days. A long grace was devoutly pronounced by the colo nel himself, for in these times of spiritual effervescence, religious observances were scrupulously maintained even in the field of battle, and at the festive board, without in the least moderating, however, the appetite for either species of indulgence. Both officers and privates despatched the meal, after this solemnity, with the earnestness of hungry veterans, who had been taught expedition in their repasts by the frolicsome lessons of the Protector. It appears from the memoirs of Dr. Bates, his physician, that when this generally grave and austere personage was disposed to unbend, he would sometimes make feasts for the inferior officers, and while they were feeding, before they had half satisfied their hunger, would cause the drums to beat, and let in the private soldiers, to fall on, and snatch away the half-finished dishes. Warned by this example, they soon completed their dinner, when another grace of portentous length was pronounced by the colonel; after which he desired them to fill their cans, and standing up, exclaimed, - -"Soldiers! although toasts have been forbidden as dangerous and heathenish, I have one to offer to which no one can object, and which I propose your drinking with three hearty cheers."

The whole assemblage having simultaneously risen at this notice, he cried out in a loud voice, -"His highness the Lord Protector!" — when the cans were lustily quaffed, and the triple shout that followed was uttered with a stentorian clamour that shook the dust from the rafters of the great hall, and reverberated hollowly from the surrounding chambers of Brambletye.

Scarcely were the company reseated, when their attention was suddenly drawn to the music balcony that overhung the hall, by the apparition of a beautiful youth, apparently not more than twelve or fourteen years of age, whose whole face reddened, and his dark eyes flashed with an angry surprise, as he gazed down upon the assemblage below him. He was habited in a close green dress, embroidered with black bugles: his cap, of the same hue, was surmounted by a long heron's feather, and being worn on one side, disclosed the black ringlets that hung down to his neck: ho had a bow in his hand; and a belt of black leather, studded with brass bosses, supported a small quiver at his back. So sudden and strange was his appearance, that the clatter of the hall was utterly suspended for a few seconds, while the company looked up at him, as if waiting some explanation of his intentions in thus presenting himself to their notice. This silence the youth was the first to break, by exclaiming in a loud voice, and with some arrogance of manner, "Where is my father, and who are ye that make such an uproar in his hall?"

"And prythee who are you, my pretty page?" replied the colonel, "and who is the father that owns so dapper a Robin Hood?"

"My name is Jocelyn," resumed the youth, with an indignant air, "and I am the only son of Sir John Compton."

"Why then, my dainty little bowman," retorted the colonel, "I am sorry to state that you have a malignant and a traitor for your father." "Thou art a liar and a knave to say it!" exclaimed the boy in a rage, and, quick as thought, fixing an arrow to his bow, he drew it to the head, and launched it with a twang at the colonel, who luckily drew suddenly

back, so that the weapon missed its aim, but stuck quivering in the wall close behind him. Every thing was uproar in an instant, and a dozen pistols were levelled at the balcony; but the commanding officer, striking them down with his sabre, exclaimed; "By heavens! I will cut off the first arm that pulls a trigger! for shame, comrades, for shame! shall we, who fear not the bravest of men, make war upon a child? - Beshrew me?" he continued, resuming his usual smile, "the lad is a good marksman, and a true, and his spirit likes me well. A toward young Dreadnought, I warrant me, and a genuine chip of the old block."

"Rather the venomous spawn of the old malignant," cried Cornet Axtell, "who will try his sting again if he escape scot-free from this attempt. The young assassin has slunk away, but let us seek and seize him, and draw his teeth before his bite becomes more dangerous."

"Seize him by all means," cried a score of voices at once; and several had already risen to execute the threat, when the colonel interposed, declaring that he freely forgave the attempt, which in an ebullition of boyish petulance, or perhaps of filial affection, had been directed against himself individually; but that as he had no ambition to enact the part of a target a second time, they might secure, if they pleased, the door of the balcony, and wink at the escape of the young desperado, for whose apprehension he finally reminded them they had no warrant from the Lord Protector.

"Suffer not the seed of Canaan to escape, nevertheless," cried a deep sepulchral voice from the door, and at the same moment an old cadaverous looking female, in a black dress, discoloured with dust, entered the hall, and stalking up to the colonel, and laying her long shrivelled hand upon his shoulder, she continued: "Robert Lilburne! Robert Lilburne ! if David suffered Zeruiah's sons to live, it was only that he might kill them more conveniently! Did not Noah curse Ham in order to punish his father Canaan, and will you allow the hyæna's cub and the wolf's whelp to steal from the den, because you have failed to trap his sire? Is this urchin's an arm which should be suffered to gather strength," she detached the arrow with some difficulty from the wainscot as she spoke, "when this white swan-feather would have been red with your heart's blood had you not avoided the blow? Put on your breastplate again, if you mean to leave him still at liberty. I marked the young Amalekite as he shot just now at the rooks in the Friar's copse, and as I followed him to the house, I said to myself, Verily this son of wrath will be a sore curse to the Lord's people if he be suffered to grow up, and unite himself with the Midianites and Moabites to launch arrows against Israel: and, lo! but a few minutes have elapsed when he bent his Canaanitish bow against thine own bosom! Would thy brother John, free-born John, and Lilburne the saint, as he was justly termed, have suffered the young caitiff to slip away? Never! and if he be not now made thy prisoner, the Lord Protector shall hear of it; and before Heaven and him do I hold you responsible for his escape."

"She is right, she is right, Mistress Lawrence is right," cried several of the soldiers, who knew that the old woman, notorious papist as she was, was often closeted, and in good favour, with his highness, and might, perhaps, have reasons, undivulged to them, for recommending the boy's apprehension with so much earnestness.

Fearful of incurring censure from the Protector if he refused to attend to a warning so publicly given, the colonel at length gave a reluctant order for seizing and bringing him into the hall, with strict injunctions, however, that he should be secured without the smallest indignity or maltreatment. How's this, my little mettlesome assailant?" he continued, as the youth was led into his presence by a file of dismounted cuirassiers, "so prompt in an attack, and such a laggard at a timely retreat! you know but half a soldier's duty. I was in hopes you had effected your escape ere this."

"I never attempted it," said the boy, sullenly.

"Why then did you so hastily retire from the balcony?"

"To look for more arrows," replied the young prisoner, with a fierce expression of countenance. "Oh! what an ass was I to shoot them all away in the Friar's copse, for I would rather have killed a single Roundhead than a thousand rooks."

"Beshrew me!" ejaculated the colonel, "he knows one part of a soldier's duty at all events. But might you not, young malapert, better give us more measured language, seeing that you are in our power, and that your attempt against myself might well warrant a sharp retaliation?"

"My relation, Lord Northampton," continued the boy, "would not ask for his life on Hopton Heath, even when your swords were at his throat, and I have been bred up to imitate his example."

"Why then, my bristling little fearnought, we will bandy words no longer; but as it is not safe that so fierce a bantam-cock, young as he is, should wear a steel spur, we will ease you of yours before we begin our march." So saying, he drew out the dagger that hung in Jocelyn's belt, and giving him over into the custody of two soldiers, joined in the rude sport of the others, who now began to toss 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.

WHILE these untoward events were occurring at Brambletye House, its owner was hotly engaged in the pleasures of the chase, 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 gentleman, 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,

No a horse or an ox to plough land,
Let Oliver pass; come fill up a glass,

And here's a good health to Rowland;"

hich he wound up with a hunter's tally-ho! instead of a chorus, and enuckled, 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 o 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 'transcendantly 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 gentleman 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 others' 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 hairbrained 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 confilence, 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 particular to say to the latter personage, and such a parade did he make of the absence of all sinister design in this little arrangement, that his palpable and clumsy finesse created the very surmises it was intended to prevent, the servants wondering what their masters could have to say that required so much secrecy, and the guests naturally distrusting their exclusion from full confidence, when they were all partisans in the same perilous undertaking.

The worthy baronet, however, who thought he had accomplished a truly Machiavelian manoeuvre, returned to Sir William winking, and looking as cunning and as knowing as the frank and open honesty of his countenance would allow him. "There they go! there they go!" exclaimed he: "the simple rogues little think how finely I have bamboozled them. I played the old fox, and gave them a touch of the deep one there, didn't I?" Here he laid his finger on one side of his nose, and made such an irresistible attempt to twist his blunt features into a sly expression, that Sir William could not refrain from a smile.

"Adzooks!" cried Sir John, "I'm right glad to see ye snigger, for you have been looking as wo-begone as Praise-God Barebones, the canting leather-seller of Fleet-street. Pshaw! man; every thing is going on well. We have killed one red-faced Noll to-day, and if I get within stone's throw of the other, I will not let him off so cheap as I did before."

"Before!" exclaimed his companion, "what are you alluding to?"

Why, hark ye, Sir William, it's a secret I wouldn't imprudently divulge to any one, because it might occasion, me to lose my head; but you have, doubtless, heard long ago of his carriage being broken by a brick bat, thrown at him from the top of a house in the Strand, as he was returning from a grand dinner, at Grocers' Hall, on an Ash-Wednesday."

"I remember the occurrence," said Sir William, "and the great hubbub it excited; but I believe they never discovered the author of the insult."

"If they had," continued Sir John, "I should not now be riding through Ashdown forest, for 'twas I who gave him that dessert, by way of letting him know that he should fast instead of feasting on an Ash-Wednesday. I could not help it, upon my soul, Sir William. I was lying sick in bed, as who could help being sick in such distempered times, when I was disturbed by the noise of his returning procession; and hurrying to the window to learn the cause, I could not resist the temptation of throwing a brickbat at the rascal's head. You could not yourself have resisted it, Sir William, I am sure you could not."

"I rather think I should," replied his auditor, calmly; "but how did you escape discovery ?"

"Suspicion luckily attached itself to the next house, and when the two or three officers who came to the sick gentleman's apartment, as mine was termed, found me ill in bed, and received my assurance that not a soul had entered my room, they very obligingly took their departure, and I heard no more of the matter."

"I recommend you, however," said Sir William, "neither to repeat your