marching gaily along, without the slightest idea that there was an enemy in our neighbourhood, we were suddenly surprised by a party of the parliamentarian forces; and, after a rapid but desperate struggle, every man of my father's troop was put to death. He himself fell amongst the last, brought from his horse to the ground by a ball through the neck. I was at the distance of about fifty yards from him, and hastened up to give him aid; but just as I was running forward, I saw one of the pikemen stoop over him, and, while my father held up his hand, in the vain endeavour to ward off the blow, the man drove his weapon through him, and pinned him to the ground. I had a large horse-pistol in my hand, which was instantly directed to the pikeman's head; and, had I but had time to discharge it, he would, most assuredly, have lain beside the gallant officer he had just killed. But, at that moment, one of his comrades struck me across the head, with the staff of his pike, crying, "So much for thee, young viper!" and brought me, stunned and powerless, to the ground.

Fortunate it was for me that the blow, without being sufficiently violent to bereave me of life, had been severe enough to deprive me of all sense or motion, for I was thus passed over as dead, and I found afterwards that no one had been taken to mercy by the victors. It was evening when we began a fight, which, in duration, did not last ten minutes; but when I woke from the sort of sleep into which I had fallen, I found the moon shining bright upon the moors, with my father and five-and-twenty gallant soldiers lying dead around me. In truth, this was the first event that ever made me think of death, even for a moment, as of a thing to be feared, or regard strife as the great destroyer of all dear affections and kindred ties. The sight was horrible enough, to see the bodies of such a number of brave and noble-hearted men now cold, inanimate, and most of them stripped of every thing valuable, lying dead in the pale moonlight, with their faces bearing all the various expressions which the human countenance can assume under different modes of violent death; but it was the sight of my father's corpse which brought it home to my own heart.

When I had recovered my senses completely--which was not for several minutes after consciousness began to return--crept onward to the spot where my father had fallen, which was not above ten paces from that on which I had been lying; and as I gazed on his still, silent face, and thought of all the affection towards myself which I had seen it bear so often, I could not help feeling that death is indeed a horrible thing. I looked at it long, till the moon began to go down, and I knew not well what to do. I had no means of burying the body, and yet there was a feeling in my bosom, not to be defined, which would not let me leave the corpse of my father uninterred for the ravens to make it their prey, or the dogs to mangle it.

Near the spot, however, there was a little copse, with some tall trees rising out of the brushwood; and, after many a painful thought, thither I retreated for shelter. As I knew not who might visit the field from the town, and as I had heard that the people of the neighbourhood were rank Roundheads, I thought it best to climb one of the oaks; and there I watched till the dawn of morning. Hardly was the sky grey with the first light when I saw six or seven people coming over the Downs with spades and shovels, and I soon found that their purpose was to bury the dead. By them that office was performed decently enough on the spot itself; and in about three or four hours it was all over, leaving no trace of the skirmish, but the turf beaten up by the horses' feet, and here and there died with gore, and the long low mound of fresh earth which covered the trench containing the dead bodies. I found, by the conversation of the men employed, that this act of charity had been performed by order of some persons in the little town who had witnessed the affair; and who, partly moved by a sense of decency, and partly with a view to salubrity, had caused the corpses to be thus covered over with earth.

I was now, like many another, alone in all the earth; without friends, or home, or resource; without money, or protection, or expectation; but perhaps I was better fitted for such circumstances than any one who was ever yet cast an orphan upon the world. I was accustomed to rely upon myself alone; to take every event as I found it; and I had been so long in the habit of seeing the sunshine and the shade, the defeat and the triumph, the disaster and the success, succeed each other like April clouds and beams, that though my heart was full of mourning for my father, yet I confidently anticipated that the next cast of the die in fortune's hand would reverse my fate, and bring me back to prosperity again.

I was mistaken, however. A long series of sufferings ensued; and they were sufferings of a nature that I had never encountered before. I had often, indeed, undergone privation, and known poverty. I had often been more than one day without tasting food, and had slept for many a night together on the bare ground; but all these inconveniences were part of the soldier's fate, matters which, however unpleasant at the time, were laughed at and forgotten as soon as they were over. Now, however, I had to endure poverty without one alleviating circumstance, or one consoling reflection.

All that I had on earth, at the moment my father was slain, consisted of two crown pieces, which had been given me by Lord Goring when we parted; but when I came to seek for them, after recovering my senses, I found that they had not escaped the researches of the plunderers who had stripped the dead around me. My clothes, indeed, probably being of little value either in point of size or quality, had been left me; and these, with a pistol and a dagger, which I found upon the ground, constituted my whole property, when at length I left the earth that contained the body of my unfortunate parent, and went forth again into the world.

It would be difficult to give any detailed account of the life I now led. I wandered over almost every part of England, seeking a precarious subsistence by every means that my habits and education permitted. Often I fell in with old comrades of my father; and then I was sure of protection and assistance as long as they had the means of affording it. Often I joined myself to a troop of Cavaliers, and for a few days lived the life to which I had been accustomed in former years. But the power of the Parliament was daily increasing, that of the King daily going down; and, one by one, every force to which I joined myself was dispersed, and I was again obliged to seek my way alone. I never, however, yielded for one moment to despair; and at times,--when I have shared in the stores provided by nature for the birds in the air, when my sole food has been haws and whortle-berries, roots and acorns,--I have hummed to myself

"There's a better time coming!"

and gone on with a light heart to seek a richer meal for the next day.

Although to plunder or to kill a Roundhead in any way that chance happened to present, was, in my mind, at that time, neither sin nor shame, yet I cannot remember ever having done what I should even now consider an evil act on my own account. Nevertheless, I must acknowledge, that, when a wounded or a fugitive companion wanted food or other necessaries, and could not obtain them for himself, I have often ventured beyond any code of morality that I know of, and have gone down to spoil the Philistines with indescribable glee.

Well known to every leader in the royal cause, and almost to every soldier, I was often employed as a guide, and still more frequently as a messenger. In the latter capacity, indeed, I was generally successful, even where others would probably have failed; and when Langdale rose in Wales he