armor of the dragoons gave them a great advantage, and though the sickles brought several of the horses to the ground, the soldiers continued to lay about them freely, and to beat back the fierce but ill-armed resistance of their opponents. A dragoon sergeant, a man of great resolution and of prodigious strength, appeared to be the leader of the party, and encouraged his followers both by word and example. A stab from a half-pike brought his horse to the ground, but he sprang from the saddle as it fell, and avenged its death by a sweeping backhanded cut from his broadsword. Waving his hat in his left hand, he continued to rally his men, and to strike down every Puritan who came against him, until a blow from a hatchet brought him on his knees, and a flail stroke broke his sword close by the hilt. At the fall of their leader his comrades turned and fled through the hedge, but the gallant fellow, wounded and bleeding, still showed fight, and would assuredly have been knocked upon the head for his pains had I not picked him up and thrown him into a wagon, where he had the good sense to lie quiet until the skirmish was at an end. Of the dozen who broke through, not more than four escaped, and several others lay dead or wounded upon the other side of the hedge, impaled by scythe blades or knocked off their horses by stones. Altogether, nine of the dragoons were slain and fourteen wounded, while we retained seven unscathed prisoners, ten horses fit for service, and a score or so of carbines, with good store of match, powder, and ball. The remainder of the troop fired a single, straggling, irregular volley, and then galloped away down the crossroad, disappearing among the trees from which they had emerged.

All this, however, had not been accomplished without severe loss upon our side. Three men had been killed and six wounded, one of them very seriously, by the musketry fire. Five had been cut down when the flanking party broke their way in, and only one of these could be expected to recover. In addition to this, one man had lost his life through the bursting of an ancient petronel, and another had his arm broken by the kick of a horse. Our total losses, therefore, were eight killed and the same wounded, which could not but be regarded as a very moderate number, when we consider the fierceness of the skirmish, and the superiority of our enemy both in discipline and in equipment.

So elated were the peasants by their victory that those who had secured horses were clamorous to be allowed to follow the dragoons, the more so as Sir Gervas Jerome and Reuben were both eager to lead them. Decimus Saxon refused, however, to listen to any such scheme, nor did he show more favor to the Rev. Joshua Pettigrue's proposal that he should, in his capacity as pastor, mount immediately upon the wagon, and improve the occasion by a few words of healing and unction.

"It is true, good Master Pettigrue, that we owe much praise and much outpouring, and much sweet and holy contending, for this blessing which hath come upon Israel," said he, "but the time hath not yet arrived. There is an hour for prayer and an hour for labor. Hark ye, friend," to one of the prisoners, "to what regiment do you belong?"

"It is not for me to reply to your questions," the man answered sulkily.

"Nay, then, we'll try if a string round your scalp and a few twists of a drumstick will make you find your tongue," said Saxon, pushing his face up to that of the prisoner, and staring into his eyes with so savage an expression that the man shrank away affrighted.

"It is a troop of the second dragoon regiment," he said. "Where is the regiment itself?"

"We left it on the Ilchester and Langport road."

"You hear," said our leader.

"We have not a moment to

spare, or we may have the whole crew about our ears. Put our dead and wounded in the carts, and we can harness two of these chargers to them. We shall not be in safety until we are in Taunton town.”

Even Master Joshua saw that the matter was too pressing to permit of any spiritual exercises. The wounded men were lifted into the wagon and laid upon the bedding, while our dead were placed in the cart which had defended our rear. The peasants who owned these, far from making any objection to this disposal of their property, assisted us in every way, tightening girths and buckling traces. Within an hour of the ending of the skirmish we found ourselves pursuing our way once more, and looking back through the twilight at the scattered black dots upon the white road, where the bodies of the dragoons marked the scene of our victory,

CHIEF JUSTICE JEFFREYS.

Late in August the judges started from London upon tha wicked journey which blighted the lives and the homes of many, and hath left a memory in the counties through whic they passed which shall never fade while a father can speak a son. We heard reports of them from day to day, for th guards took pleasure in detailing them with many coarse an foul jests, that we might know what was in store for us, an lose none of what they called the pleasures of anticipation. A Winchester the sainted and honored Lady Alice Lisle was ser tenced by Chief Justice Jeffreys to be burned alive, and th exertions and prayers of her friends could scarce prevail upo him to allow her the small boon of the ax instead of the fago Her graceful head was hewn from her body amid the groan and the cries of a weeping multitude in the market place of th town. At Dorchester the slaughter was wholesale. Thre hundred were condemned to death, and seventy-four were act ally executed, until the most loyal and Tory of the countr squires had to complain of the universal presence of the dar gling bodies. Thence the judges proceeded to Exeter, an thence to Taunton, which they reached in the first week of Se tember, more like furious and ravenous beasts which have taste blood, and cannot quench their cravings for slaughter, than jus minded men, trained to distinguish the various degrees of guil or to pick out the innocent and screen him from injustice. rare field was open for their cruelty, for in Taunton alone ther lay a thousand hapless prisoners, many of whom were so littl trained to express their thoughts, and so hampered by th strange dialect in which they spoke, that they might have bee born dumb for all the chance they had of making either judg or counsel understand the pleadings which they wished to la before them.

It was on Monday evening that the Lord Chief Justice mad his entry. From one of the windows of the room in whic we were confined I saw him pass. First rode the dragoon with their standards and kettledrums, then the javelin me with their halberds, and behind them the line of coaches fu of the high dignitaries of the law. Last of all, drawn by si long-tailed Flemish mares, came a great open coach, thickl crusted with gold, in which, reclining amid velvet cushions sat the infamous judge, wrapped in a cloak of crimson plush

with a heavy white periwig upon his head, which was so long that it dropped down over his shoulders. They say that he wore scarlet in order to strike terror into the hearts of the

people, and that his courts were, for the same reason, draped in the color of blood. As for himself, it hath ever been the custom, since his wickedness hath come to be known to all men, to picture him as a man whose expression and features were as monstrous and as hideous as was the mind behind them. This is by no means the case. On the contrary, he was a man who, in his younger days, must have been remarkable for his extreme beauty. He was not, it is true, very old, as years go, when I saw him, but debauchery and low living had left their traces upon his countenance, without, however, entirely destroying the regularity and the beauty of his features. He was dark, more like a Spaniard than an Englishman, with black eyes and olive complexion. His expression was lofty and noble, but his temper was so easily aflame that the slightest cross or annoyance would set him raving like a madman, with blazing eyes and foaming mouth. I have seen him myself with the froth upon his lips and his whole face twitching with passion, like one who hath the falling sickness. Yet his other emotions were under as little control, for I have heard say that a very little would cause him to sob and to weep, more especially when he had himself been slighted by those who were above him. He was, I believe, a man who had great powers either for good or for evil, but by pandering to the darker side of his nature, and neglecting the other, he brought himself to be as near a fiend as it is possible for a man to be. It must indeed have been an evil government where so vile and foul-mouthed a wretch was chosen out to hold the scales of justice. As he drove past, a Tory gentleman riding by the side of his coach drew his attention to the faces of the prisoners looking out at him. He glanced up at them with a quick malicious gleam of his white teeth, then settled down again among the cushions. observed that as he passed not a hat was raised among the crowd, and that even the rude soldiers appeared to look upon him half in terror, half in disgust, as a lion might look upon some foul blood-sucking bat, which battened upon the prey which he had himself struck down.

MICAH'S TRIAL AND SENTENCE.

There was no delay in the work of slaughter. That very night the great gallows was erected outside the White Hart Inn. Hour after hour we could hear the blows of mallets and the sawing of beams, mingled with the shoutings and the ribald choruses of the Chief Justice's suite, who were carousing with the officers of the Tangiers regiment in the front room, which overlooked the gibbet. Among the prisoners the night was passed in prayer and meditation, the stout-hearted holding forth to their weaker brethren, and exhorting them to play the man, and to go to their death in a fashion which should be an example to true Protestants throughout the world. The Puritan divines had been mostly strung up offhand immediately after the battle, but a few were left to sustain the courage of their flocks, and to show them the way upon the scaffold. Never have I seen anything so admirable as the cool and cheerful bravery wherewith these poor clowns faced their fate. Their courage on the battlefield paled before that which they showed in the shambles of the law. So, amid the low murmur of prayer, and appeals for mercy to God from tongues which never yet asked mercy from man, the morning broke, the last morning which many of us were to spend upon earth.

The court should have opened at nine, but my Lord Chief Justice was indisposed, having sat up somewhat late with Colonel Kirke. It was nearly eleven before the trumpeters and criers announced that he had taken his seat. One by one my fellow-prisoners were called out by name, the more prominent being chosen first. They went out from among us amid hand shakings and blessings, but we saw and heard no more of them, save that a sudden fierce rattle of kettledrums would rise up now and again, which was, as our guards told us, to drown any dying words which might fall from the sufferers and bear fruit in the breasts of those who heard them. With firm steps and smiling faces, the roll of martyrs went forth to their fate, during the whole of that long autumn day, until the rough soldiers of the guard stood silent and awed in the presence of a courage which they could not but recognize as higher and nobler than their own. Folk may call it a trial that they received, and a trial it really was, but not in the sense that we Englishmen use it. It was but being haled before a judge, and insulted before being dragged to the gibbet. The courthouse