The Lord Fairfax was now advancing from Exeter to Totnes, and everywhere victorious. Panic struck into the hearts of the malignants since Naseby. The Royal cause had grown continually weaker, and the character of Charles was lamentably deficient, as even his friends were compelled to admit, of the settled resolution and fixed purpose which are in themselves a source of strength to any cause. "Conscious," as they say, "of the purity of his own motives, he yet never ceased to divide mankind into two simple classes: into those who agreed with him, and those who did not-into sheep to be cherished, and goats to be rejected. Such narrowness of view was no guarantee for fixity of purpose." The special fault which marked King Charles as unworthy of respect was his want of truthfulness. It may be that he had mental reservations when he gave his word, but such reservations were neither honourable, manly, nor kingly. "Sometimes he went still further, apparently thinking that it was lawful to use deception as a weapon against those who he considered had no right to know the whole truth."

On the 18th day of January the siege of Plymouth was raised. The Royalists decamped at last in such a hurry that they left guns, arms, and ammunition behind. We took seven guns at Plympton. There was much rejoicing amongst us at this victorious march of Fairfax through Devon and Cornwall, where Essex had previously encountered such bitter hostility and such bad fortune. Now Fairfax had retaken the guns of that commander at both Bristol and Bridgwater, and in Cornwall he caused Hopton's forces to surrender, just as our General Skippon had had to do in the earlier time. I could but rejoice greatly to see one of whom I had heard so much and whom I venerated so highly as Sir Thomas Fairfax. Besides which, he being a countryman of my own, and having abundance of Yorkshiremen in his train, I listened for his speech and that of his officers and soldiers, as for the echoes of beloved and familiar music.

And no sooner hardly had he and they arrived amongst us than I was informed that a soldier desired to speak with me. I had retired to my delightful invalid quarters at the house of Mr. Woollcombe when this message was brought to me by Bridget. I had already been greatly excited, and Lucy feared the consequences of any further interruption to my rest. But learning that the man was without, I requested leave for him to enter the hall, and I would just see him and put him off until the morrow. Almost directly I had left the parlour to do this, my hand was eagerly grasped by a somewhat gaunt and grizzled Yorkshireman, who shook it almost too eagerly for my weak frame, and poured out in my astonished ears a torrent of delightful greeting, in such pure unadulterated provincialisms that I doubt any Devonian could have understood him. But I, though I smiled at his words and thought how differently they sounded to the softer southern tongue I had been used to now for years, was astonished to find how right glad I was to welcome perhaps the least worthy, though not the least affectionate, of all my northern friends.

"Jonathan, lad, who could have believed you would travel so far? And when did you see any of

them at Brier Grange, or hear any news of them? I have been wounded, Jonathan. Have you escaped? Why, it's like old times again to see you turn up from yon far-off place."

Yes, it was Jonathan Thorp, but a Jonathan sadly changed for the worse. His broken-down, dissipated look showed me plainly enough that he would have done far more wisely to remain at the farm, than to wander from place to place in an army—a life which gives a man inclined to excess of any kind, little chance of improvement.

Even now, when I was obliged from my own exhaustion to dismiss him, he begged sorely for the price of a glass of strong waters.

"Jonathan, I am ashamed of you," I said; "we want no drunken Yorkshire lads in this good old town."

Lucy insisted he should have a basin of hot soup in the kitchen, a little to Bridget's horror, if one may judge from the likeness to gooseberries of her eyes and the flat appearance of her mouth. But she made no objection in words, and these two were pretty safe not to quarrel, neither of them being able to speak plain English to the other.

I am very sorry to have to confess that Jonathan Thorp did no honour, whilst in Plymouth garrison, to his native county. It was evident that the poor fellow's love for drink had grown upon him greatly, and none of my persuasions could induce him to abandon his excesses. He even made his trouble about my wound an excuse for drinking, and blubbered in a senseless way to me about my father till I was obliged to silence him. He could give me no news from Brier Grange, having left it, as Lettice had informed me, and he had not returned to it again. I enjoined him to come to me there, when the war was over, and I saw him march into Cornwall with feelings akin to relief. If only he had been, as General Cromwell said, "none of your ale-house men," I would gladly have proposed to take him with me to join the Ironsides.

Two Royalist garrisons held out after the siege was raised. These were Mount Edgecumbe and Ince House. Sir Thomas Fairfax offered good terms to Colonel Edgecumbe : " If he would disgarri son his house, lay down arms, and persuade those of the Cornish in whom he has good interest, to sit down and submit to all orders and ordinances of Parliament, in that case I do undertake that his house shall not be made a garrison, but that he shall have the free liberty of it, security of his person and goods as to my army; and, further, that he shall have from me a letter of recommendation to the Parliament or committee for the army, that he may by them be dealt withal as one that deserves their favour for his liberal and reasonable coming in."

Colonel Edgecumbe did not then surrender his mansion, but did so eventually to Colonel Hammond, the Governor of Exeter, who found in it thirty pieces of ordnance and store of arms and ammunition.

Ince House held out until the end of March. On the 29th of that month the last party we sent out from Plymouth summoned it to surrender. The garrison returned a scornful answer. Thereupon we Plymouth men sent for our cannon, wherewith to do battle. Upon seeing the guns the courage of the

garrison failed, and they begged for quarter. We took at this house four guns and ninety muskets.

Being now well of my wound I engaged in this sally, and have ever since been glad that I did, it being the very last of all the siege operations, which had now continued over three years, and I had been here all but a few months of that time, till I was so incorporated both in affection and interest with the people of this town that I can feel no closer relationship to any folk, save to those of Brier Grange, and Lucy will well understand that she is excepted even from that exception.

Our success was glorious, but it cost many precious lives, not less, I hear it estimated, than from three to four thousand, besides many wounded, who, like poor Tom, have gone home to die.

The trade of this valiant old town suffered terribly, and scarcely a family but had endured some bereavement, either amongst the soldiers or the trainbands. But "tough" old Plymouth well earned its name; it had never wavered, and, like a lighthouse beacon, stood upon the sea-shore a warning and a guide to less brave, less faithful hearts.

There being now no more excuse for me to stay, I unwillingly bade adieu to my darling Lucy and her father, to Mrs. Tonkin and her family, and to all my other Plymouth friends, not forgetting, yet not daring to include, the influential Bridget; and in the early glory of the summer-time, when Plymouth wears one of her most charming aspects, joined Lieutenant-General Cromwell's Ironsides, as he had directed me.

The future, all uncertain, was before me, the past which I had attained was full of tender memories and sad regrets, of friendships made, and some ended for time, but not, as I dared to hope, for eternity.

Lucy's brave soul cheered me to trust our future in God's hands, though I well knew the poor loving heart must suffer bitterly when the buoyant soul dropped its wings of faith, and affection triumphed. From Mr. Woollcombe, at parting, I received an almost fatherly embrace.

"I am not long for this world," he said, gently; "I have thought much of your father lately, Ben, dying his brave, sudden death on Marston Moor, doing his duty, as he thought. Perhaps we shall meet up there, Ben, and there will be no fighting."

I could not answer him save by a pressure of his hand and a kiss on his pale brow, as if he had indeed been a father to me.

"I suppose you will win the prize at last, Ben, and, if you do, be kind to my little Lucy."

Those were the last words he ever spoke to me.

CHAPTER XXVI.-Under the Protectorate.

TRANGELY unreal the past seems to me sometimes, and yet how it interests all of us to recount its stirring events, in which we, consciously or unconsciously, were actors or participators.

When I left my Lucy to follow the fortunes of General Cromwell, correspondence between us we knew would be difficult and uncertain. It was no small addition to the grief of separation, that for weeks, ay, months, we might have to take all on trust concerning each other. But whenever I thought the fact of her being a Royalist might delay the communication, or cause it to suffer undue examination, I had arranged with our dear friend Mrs. Tonkin to send the missive to her instead; and this kindness on her part led to Lucy's receiving far more tidings of me than she could have done otherwise.

The influence of our beloved and honoured leader

over his soldiers can never be exaggerated. It was boundless. He had never led them save to victory, and his victories had rarely, if ever, been stained by the usual excesses of the soldiery at such times. Each triumph of his forces was moral as well as physical. His determination, which sometimes unjustly gained him a character for cruelty, as in Ireland and Scotland, where he was only anxious by swift decision to save as much as possible the effusion of blood, was the effect of a carefully digested knowledge of all the circumstances under which both he and his opponents fought.

For our Protector (then our General) was not only a soldier but a politician and a preacher, and as truly a born governor and leader of men in all of these relations as in any one of them.

But these pages I have gathered together from the various letters I sent to Brier Grange, and memoranda meant for their information at home and to jog my own memory relative to the siege of Plymouth. For while there have been already, and are likely to be yet more, abundant chroniclers of the doings of the greatest General the world has seen in England for centuries, the siege of Plymouth, because it never was graced by his presence therein, has, as I conceive. been too much lost sight of. And yet the brave holding out of her inhabitants and garrison with most exemplary courage and diligence did very much, as I must ever believe, to preserve the success of the good cause of religious and political liberty at a difficult time, when the hearts of many wavered or were altogether turned aside.

I had several companions when I came to General Cromwell, for all who remained of "Tonkin's Ironsides" volunteered to serve under him, and he took great interest in these young men, and liked for them and for me to tell him of their brave leader, and how his young life was given up for duty and for God.

I have another reason for taking good heed to prc

individually, but as one who upheld the party that "murdered" her King-a shade of that feeling which I had for all Royalists, even for my darling, when I found they had been the death of my father on Marston Moor.

Lucy has told me since, that nothing I ever said gave her more real satisfaction than when I owned that I could not have been one to recommend the taking of the King's life, for that I believed it injured the good cause it was intended to serve.

At the very last, as they gathered around the bedside of the noble old Royalist, as faithful Bridget supported his head, and his child knelt beside him with his hand in hers, and gentle Mrs. Tonkin sat near them, he looked at Lucy with a sweet playfulness on his face she had not seen there before since the King died.

"Do you still love him, child?" asked the old

man.

"Indeed I do, father."

"When I am gone, Lucy, you'll be free to do as you will."

"Don't say that, father! don't say that !" said the poor girl, sobbing.

"I must not set my authority against human nature, must I, Mrs. Tonkin ?" he asked, turning to our friend.

"You will do wisely not to, Mr. Woollcombe." "And I love the young man, too," he said, smiling again at his daughter. He's a very naughty boy to be a Roundhead, but I suppose that wasn't his fault." Then he sobbed a little, and murmured. "But oh! Ben Holbeck, you shouldn't have killed your King!"

"Ben would not have done it, father; I am sure of that," said Lucy,

"Indeed, I think not," added Mrs. Tonkin. "Then he shall have my child!" And Lucy hung about him, thankful that the bar that separated us and prevented our actual union, had been at last removed by her father himself.

These were his last words. Lucy had been a little shy of telling me, so with her letter came another from Mrs. Tonkin, relating the last scene. In it our friend wrote, "It was in our house in Southside-street that you first met dearest Lucy, and I suggest that thence you should take her to your Yorkshire home, when, in God's good providence, He enables you to wear the jewel you have won. For the present she remains with Bridget, at the house in Looe-Street. If she has any desire to let it, James, who is about to marry, but not quite directly, will be glad to secure it of her." James was one of Mrs. Tonkin's sons.

About a year after I had left Plymouth-and this I should have mentioned sooner-I found myself once more at Brier Grange. My dear old grandmother had lived to welcome me home. The great changes I found there in all the rest were beyond what I had imagined. Miriam was married, as I have already noted, and Lettice, little Lettice, whom I regarded as a child, was the object of the esteem and admiration of a good minister at Leeds, who came very frequently to the farm to visit her. He was a grave, portly man, of mature age, but as Lettice was peacefully happy, I had no reason to complain, though I found as much difference of opinion

between us on important matters as ever had troubled the intercourse of Mr. Woollcombe and myself. For the Rev. Andrew Scott was a Presbyterian of very pronounced and determined views, and not to subscribe to the Covenant was, in his sight, almost a crime.

My mother had grown prematurely old, and her sorrows had increased a somewhat irritable manner. Poor mother! She fretted sadly about the farm, and the need there was for the presence of the master. But I doubted whether she would have given up the management to me very willingly. Patience, always kind and gentle, though not so bright as some people, was the blessed means often of soothing my mother and removing her difficulties. I did not find it quite easy to make known my love for Lucy Woollcombe in this dear household.

I first of all confided my secret to dear grandmother, and from her received nothing but kindness and consideration. Lettice was my next confidant; Lettice would have been glad to enter with sympathy into my hopes, had she not been a little afraid that her sedate and clerical lover would disapprove. My mother was hurt and surprised at my not knowing better than to choose a Royalist.

I know nothing against the young woman, of course, Ben, but when there are so many nice girls of our own opinions and our own county, too, whom it would have been wise to choose":

I knew she was thinking of Judith and her property, so I said gently that I never saw anyone in Yorkshire to love; and also expressed myself decidedly, that, as soon as circumstances made it possible I should go and claim my Devonshire bride. Very soon after this I had to leave them all, and in a month or two our dear grandmother exchanged earth for heaven. Lettice was right, the battle of Marston Moor had given her a death-wound when my father was slain.

It was five and a half years after I had left her that I was able, at last, to take my journey into Devonshire to bring Lucy to my home. I had some grave doubts and misgivings as to how the united families would live together at Brier Grange. But my mother generously solved all my difficulties. She was tired, she said, of farming, and would gladly occupy a very pretty little cottage at the other end of our village with my sister Patience, and leave to us the old family house. My father had declared to her his wish that this should be so if I showed any inclination for the farm.

So after I had found this really was what she desired, I agreed to it, and set my house in order for my Lucy before I went south. Lettice had long ago left home for Leeds, but she came over to us, and, together with Patience and Miriam, devised much that was pretty and useful in my furnishing, my mother having taken all she needed for the cottage from Brier Grange on purpose that we might have some new things about us.

The wedding was to be, as Mrs. Tonkin had so kindly suggested, at Southside-street; Bridget was, of course, to accompany her mistress, though never has she brought her mind as yet to call me "master." Moll Tonkin and her sister acted as bridesmaids, and Mr. Tonkin gave the bride away. Harry was the life of us that day. I was too full of the perfect joy

of reunion with my darling, a union that nothing but death need separate, to be able to talk much; and Lucy had much to make the occasion solemn as well as sweet to her.

But I hear her now, as I write this, laughing and singing like a girl, amidst her children in the orchard yonder, in a way that makes me remember how she told me during the siege, that she was very merry and light-hearted before it began.

"Ben! father!" she calls, "are you not coming to us ? Charlie is waiting for you, and Lettie was

promised the rosiest apple long ago. And soon the village children will be coming, father, and nothing ready for them. Come! Baby is making up his rosy lips to kiss you. You really must not keep the little ones waiting so. And as to their mother-did she not wait long enough years ago? Come, Ben!" The last word must be written, the quill must be thrown aside. The children will know why, when they read it.

"Coming, sweet wife! coming, dear babes!"

THE END.

BRAVE SEA-CAPTAINS.

T was a strange contrast to the victorious days we have lately told of, when, in June, 1667, a Dutch fleet sailed into the Thames, entered the Medway unopposed, and burned three men-of-war which lay at anchor under the guns of Upnor Castle. Never before or since was the honour of England so shamefully tarnished! The country had been taken by surprise; it had been lulled in a delusive dream of enthusiastic loyalty, and awoke to find itself betrayed.

Though war was being waged with the Dutch, no preparations were made to guard against invasion, or equip an adequate fleet. The moneys voted by Parliament were expended by a dissolute King on rapacious favourites and licentious pleasures. The seamen could not get their wages; the dockyards were idle, because their artificers could not be paid. As Andrew Marvell tells us :

"Each day they bring the tale, and that too true,
How strong the Dutch their equipage renew.
Meantime through all the yards their orders run
To lay the ships up, now the keels begun.
The timber rots, the useless axe doth rust;
Th' unpractised saw lies buried in its dust;
The busy hammer sleeps, the ropes untwine,
The store and wages all are mine and thine;
Along the coasts and harbours they take care
That money lacks, nor forts be in repair."

On the 23rd of January the seamen at Wapping broke out into mutiny for want of pay, and the Horse Guards were sent to coerce them into obedience.

Parliament voted a grant of money, but the sailors mutinied again, for they were still unpaid. On the 5th of June it is recorded that the Portuguese Ambassador had gone on board The Happy Return, which was ordered to sail for Holland; but the crew refused to haul a rope or unfurl a sail until they received their wages. Three days later it was known that a Dutch fleet of eighty sail had been seen off Harwich.

Even the Court now began to feel that it was time to do something; Lord Oxford was despatched to raise the militia of the Eastern counties; and my Lord Berkeley set off for Harwich, accompanied by the Duke of Monmouth, and "with him," as Pepys says, "a great many young Hectors." On the 20th of June the Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter, numbering fifty-one men-of-war, three frigates, and fourteen fireships, was at the Nore. Monk, Duke of Albemarle, started at once for Chatham, and found that the river was defenceless; that the Medway was open to the enemy, who at their leisure might attack and burn the dockyard. He hastily constructed a few batteries, reinforced the garrison of Upnor Castle, and, behind a boom which had been thrown over the Medway, opposite the village of Gillingham, posted three men-of-war. To obstruct the navigation seven ships had been sunk across the river; eight would have proved effectual, but a small gap was left through lack of the eighth, and the Dutch fleet passed it one by one. They had weighed anchor from Sheerness on the morning of the 22nd, after blowing up the fort, and quickly ascending the river, broke through the boom, captured the men of war, and silenced the land batteries. The roar of their guns was heard in London. "The alarm was so great," writes Evelyn, "that it put both country and city into fear-a panic and consternation such as I hope I shall never see more; everybody was flying, none knew why or whither."

De Ruyter proceeded to attack Upnor Castle, which, however, was so strongly defended that he made little impression upon it. His fire was next directed against the men-of-war which lay at anchor off Chatham, and, as these were utterly defenceless, the crews were soon overpowered. Three of them, the Royal London, the Great James, and the Royal Oak,